https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/assange-ecuador-united-states-asylum/2018/10/29/id/888495/
Thursday November 01, 2018
Assange: Ecuador Planning to Turn Him Over to US
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said on Monday that Ecuador is seeking to end his asylum in its London embassy and hand him over to the United States, citing a new set of rules governing his residence at the Andean nation’s diplomatic mission as evidence.
Assange spoke from the embassy via teleconference at the first hearing of a lawsuit in Quito that was initiated by his legal team against the Ecuadorean government. The lawsuit challenges the new rules, which require him to pay for medical bills, phone calls and clean up after his pet cat.
During the hearing, Assange said the new rules were a sign Ecuador was trying to push him out, and said Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno had already decided to end his asylum but had not yet officially given the order.
His comments prompted the South American country’s top government attorney, Iñigo Salvador, to interrupt him and warn him not to make political statements during the proceedings.
Court officials told journalists they could not record any of the statements made during the hearing.
But we’ve seen this before:
Wikileaks’ Julian Assange will be removed from the Ecuadorean Embassy ‘imminently’
Jim Edwards
Jul. 28, 2018, 9:37 AMWikileaks Julian Assange could be removed from the Ecuador Embassy in London “imminently.”
He has been there six years, in an attempt to avoid extradition to Sweden or the US.
His health is failing.
LONDON — Julian Assange will be kicked out of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London— where he has lived in diplomatic isolation since 2012 — “imminently,” a source has told The Times of London. CNN reports that Downing Street is in “ongoing” discussions with Ecuador and the United States over his fate.
Both Ecuador and Britain want to ensure Assange remains unharmed. But their suspicion is that US prosecutors have a sealed indictment against him and will extradite him to America, where he faces prison if convicted of charges related to the publication of US documents that were subject to national security secrecy protections. CNN said:
I believe that time it was when he had been told he had to clean up his bathroom…
So “This time for sure!”?
Or just Ecuador getting tired of picking up his cat poo?
Personally, I think it would be best if the UK handed him over to the USA and Trump gave him a blanket pardon.
1) Ecuador would be “off the hook” for dealing with him and can get their life back.
2) The UK stops looking like a foolish Police State now that Sweden had dropped the original charges / issue. All the resources wasted on this can go to productive use.
3) Assange stops being in the limelight as a Noble Martyr to the Cause. He can see his kids, catch some sun, and lick his wounds while contemplating his ways.
4) Trump ends an ongoing pointless melodrama and gets a load of Tech Rebels on his side. It’s always helpful to have the geeks “on side”.
5) All the rest of us can forget about the whole sordid affair and get back to Real Life(tm).
Musings from the Chiefio 
Looks like Assange is twitterbanned:
https://twitter.com/navyhato/status/1057847193346789377
The UK want him for jumping bail, if after prosecuting him for that, anyone else wants him, then UK due process will be followed (though it is unlikely he will be granted bail).
Police States tend to not need legal reasons for detaining people, Assenge breached bail, deliberately and with malice afore thought, the UK authorities have no choice but to prosecute him, whether Sweden would request extradition after that is up to them, the US has indicated they have (had?) no interest in extraditing him from either the UK or Sweden. Sweden get first crack at him anyway, the US claim would just join the queue.
I just do not see what law Assange has broken here. He is not a citizen, he has not purloined any of the material he has published, and even if he has, there is the freedom of the press. So what is the US going to charge him with? I think he is a weasel, but good journalists usually are.
It is not necessary to break a law to be charged, prosecuted and convicted. If a prosecutor wants to GET you he will. I have seen it happen several times to honest citizens. In the case of Assange he has skirted the law several times…pg
There are a bunch of “conspiracy to…” laws and “process laws” and “possession of” laws that can be used to set up just about anyone. Somebody steals a book and loans it to you: receipt of stolen goods. Cop asks you is it stolen, you say no (’cause you borrowed it from a friend) you go down on obstruction of justice and lying to an officer (you ought to have said “I don’t know, I don’t think so, I borrowed it from FOO” but by not thinking like a lawyer you are now charged). Further, if they suspect you wanted the book before it was stolen and encouraged getting it (“Gee, Fred, I really am looking forward to that new Grisham novel…”) you get conspiracy to steal also…
All for borrowing a book from a fiend…
Wikileaks publishes information stolen from companies and governments. (So does the NYT, BTW). It encourages this by saying it will publish. So “conspiracy to…” steal, defraud, and I’m sure a dozen other including “computer crimes”, possession of stolen “intellectual property”, and by claiming they are just journalists and its OK, and not turning over their sources: obstruction of justice and lying to an officer.
Just like the NYT… except the NTY is friends with the Mayor, donates to campaigns, and writes a story around their stolen data instead of just showing the facts to the world.
PG is correct. It happens all the time and is, in part, a foreseeable consequence of criminalizing commerce. https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=3+felonies+a+day+book&tag=mh0b-20&index=aps&hvadid=77653076152041&hvqmt=b&hvbmt=bb&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_98ftqtgm6w_b
Please go read USC title 18. That’s where most of the federal felonies are defined.
I am aware of the adage “You can indict a ham sandwich”. But I still do not see any laws broken. Yes, he publishes stolen data, just like the NY Crimes. Yes, the fact that he insinuates that if you steal it, he will publish it. But so does the NY Crimes. And, at no time has be performed any of these acts while under the jurisdiction of the US. Trying to get him on those charges means they can go after the BBC, France 24, virtually ANY organization anywhere in the world that has printed what was once secret data. While that ham sandwich can be indicted, will the rest of the world really stand for such an over reach?
I doubt it. But that is the basis of the entire argument calling for Assange’s extradition. I objected when Obama tried such a blatant and odious unconstitutional action. I have not changed my opinion.
@Philjourdan:
The USA has already pushed its “jurisdiction” globally. As a US Citizen, try to open a bank account in the EU. Many banks just refuse. Why? US Reporting requirements. If you don’t do them, your bank gets punished and IIRC you broke US law. Every bit of US money and US transactions GLOBALLY must be reported to the USA.
There’s other similar examples, I just haven’t had morning coffee yet so don’t remember them ;-)
The dominant feature of our present legal system is selective enforcement. If anyone wanted to, they could find a lot of laws the NYT has broken. At one time, I figured I’d “committed” a felony continuously every day for something like a decade. (Almost all of it was when I found a ‘film can’ of marijuana seeds that ended up in a box in college and were not discovered again until a decade later – when it was a felony to “possess with intent to grow”).
There’s all sorts of things people do that are illegal and they don’t even know it, but a bit of diligence will get them tied up. Things like hiding out in the embassy is “child endangerment” because he wasn’t home to take care of them or maybe “child abandonment”. Not surrendering himself to authorities “obstruction” “fleeing lawful authority & resisting arrest”. At present, it HAS happened, if a cop grabs your arm by surprise and you pull back – that is “resisting arrest”. So cops who want to double up on you just do a sudden surprise grab. Pretty much everyone will do an instinctive jerk back.
And yet, he is still not a citizen, nor is he in the country. so unlike the bank example, we have a foreign national in a foreign country that we are trying to apply domestic laws to? SO who is next? Putin? QEII? Macron?
This is far worse than telling Swiss banks we want to know what AMERICANS are doing. This is telling those banks we want to know what Swiss citizens are doing. And that has not happened yet.
And the Swiss Bank and Swiss Banker are not in the USA and not USA Citizens, yet must comply with US law… It is the application of US Law outside our borders to non-citizen entities.
Similarly, I’m pretty sure the USA just indicted a bunch of Russians who never left Russia for posting things on Social Media….
There’s other stuff like that too. Raising Coca in Colombia was legal, but we held the folks doing it to be violating US drug laws and started minor wars over it. Even going so far as to get Colombia to reduce the scope of the legality.
Who’s next? Anyone any where in the world that the USA power structure does not like.